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How to Make Hemp Protein Powder

Yesterday I wrote about making my own Onnit Hemp Force protein powder because I found many of the ingredients at a local bulk food store. While I didn’t find hemp protein powder in bulk, I did find hulled hemp seeds in bulk, which got me thinking. Could I buy some hulled hemp seeds, toss them in my Blendtec Wildside blender and make my own hemp protein powder?

Turns out that I can’t. At least not easily. Hemp protein powder isn’t made by simply blending up hemp seeds into an ultra fine powder. In fact, to make hemp protein powder, you have to first separate the hemp seeds from the shell. Next, the seeds are separated from its natural oil, leaving three products: the hemp shells, the hemp seeds, and the hemp oil. The seeds are then dried to remove moisture. Finally, the seeds are added back with the shells and ground into a fine powder, producing hemp protein powder.

Hulled hemp seeds are whole hemp seeds that have the outer shell removed. As a result, it would be impossible for me to replicate store-bought hemp protein powder using hulled hemp seeds. However, all is not lost. Turns out that the absence of the outer shell removes the fiber and the minerals. This means that the total protein count is higher when compared to an equal amount or serving of whole hemp seeds.

Confusing, right? To complicate things further, some people prefer using ground hulled hemp seeds over manufactured hemp protein powder because virtually all protein powders contain chemicals (more on this in a future blog post.) So what can be done is to grind up hulled hemp seeds into a fine powder and use that instead of hemp protein powder. The one caveat is that you have to double or triple the amount of powder that you use to equal the protein of a store-bought hemp protein powder. However, you can rest easy knowing that you’re using something completely natural that you made yourself, 100% free of chemicals.